Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

I'm up to 4th Kyu test next month, and I asked my instructor if he could clarify Shomenuchi Sankyo ura, as I've seen about 3 different ways to perform it, while practicing with sempais after class. During class we did Morotedori sankyo ura, and in the middle of practice he told my partner to attack with shomenuchi. I thought "oh good, that's allot easier", but suddenly I couldn't get the ura at all. I had a flashbacks of verbal descriptions for a good ura by sempai, aikido3d and various resources, like letting the attack go a bit further, and blending with the motion and redirecting it, and crap - none of that worked, i totally missed it infront of the instructor.. I did get what i was doing wrong and performed a nice ura, but I think all the verbal descriptions I was focused on at first kinda confused me

I'm thinking that the problem with a verbal description is that you have to take into account not just what was said, but also what was not said. otherwise you stick to what you clearly remember and omit everything else..